AMD's response to Vega price hikes

[Ginger_]

It's really not much of a response, but they finally came out with something. Personally it makes no sense, they delayed Vega to build stock, then still didn't have close to enough. The original article nailed it as well, no one wants the game bundle. I might buy wofenstein, almost certainly not whatever the second is, but I don't want to pay 100 extra for something I really don't care about. 

 

 

Source:https://videocardz.com/72123/amd-issues-official-statement-regarding-radeon-rx-vega-64-pricing

 

 

Quote

At IO-Tech, we can find the official statement from AMD:

Quote

Radeon RX Vega 64 demand continues to exceed expectations. AMD is working closely with its partners to address this demand. Our initial launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega 64 at SEP of $499, Radeon RX Vega 64 Black Packs at SEP of $599, and Radeon RX Vega 64 Aqua Packs at SEP of $699. We are working with our partners to restock all SKUs of Radeon RX Vega 64 including the standalone cards and Gamer Packs over the next few weeks, and you should expect quantities of Vega to start arriving in the coming days.

 

This puts some discussions to rest, but it still does not explain why the volume of standalone cards was so low. This statement also clarifies that AMD has no intention to focus on standalone offer, which means even if the restocking happens, the situation with Vega availability will not change dramatically.

The statement also raises a question, why is standalone Vega 100 USD cheaper than Vega in Radeon Black Pack. How can anyone even say that included games are free when they are not.

I think it became quite clear that barely anyone wants those packs. We want ‘the new GPU king under $500’ just as advertised.

 

Edited August 18, 2017 by Ginger137
Quotes and formatting fixed, enjoy!

[themctipers]

2 minutes ago, Ginger137 said:

It's really not much of a response, but they finally came out with something. Personally it makes no sense, they delayed Vega to build stock, then still didn't have close to enough. The original article nailed it as well, no one wants the game bundle. I might buy wofenstein, almost certainly not whatever the second is, but I don't want to pay 100 extra for something I really don't care about. 

 

Source:https://videocardz.com/72123/amd-issues-official-statement-regarding-radeon-rx-vega-64-pricing

 

At IO-Tech, we can find the official statement from AMD:

Quote

Radeon RX Vega 64 demand continues to exceed expectations. AMD is working closely with its partners to address this demand. Our initial launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega 64 at SEP of $499, Radeon RX Vega 64 Black Packs at SEP of $599, and Radeon RX Vega 64 Aqua Packs at SEP of $699. We are working with our partners to restock all SKUs of Radeon RX Vega 64 including the standalone cards and Gamer Packs over the next few weeks, and you should expect quantities of Vega to start arriving in the coming days.

This puts some discussion to the rest, but it still does not explain why the volume of standalone cards was so low. This statement also clarifies that AMD has no intention to focus on standalone offer, which means even if the restocking happens, the situation with Vega availability will not change dramatically.

The statement also raises a question, why is standalone Vega 100 USD cheaper than Vega in Radeon Black Pack. How can anyone even say that included games are free when they are not.

 

I think it became quite clear that barely anyone wants those packs. We want ‘the new GPU king under $500’ just as advertised.

now it's compliant 

[Daan101]

Does this whole packs thing affect board partners like gigabyte or msi? 

[Badly Browned]

What the heck is "SEP"?

 

I've heard of MSRP and SRP, but never SEP. A quick google search doesn't seem to yield anything useful. 

[Guest]

One word, miners. They really don't benefit AMD, and they are trying to discourage them.

[Princess Luna]

I still think use HBM2 was nothing but a failed marketing thing, it is expensive and difficult to make, gives no real benefits but make stocking it harder and cost more.

 

I really like Ryzen but when it gets to Graphics; nVidia all the way.

[Ginger_]

8 minutes ago, Daan101 said:

Does this whole packs thing affect board partners like gigabyte or msi? 

I hope not as that's what I'm waiting for. I have a freesync monitor so Vega is the most logical way to go. If they keep the prices jacked up on both cards for the board partners I'm going with Nvidia. 

[jagdtigger]

2 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

I still think use HBM2 was nothing but a failed marketing thing, it is expensive and difficult to make, gives no real benefits but make stocking it harder and cost more.

 

I really like Ryzen but when it gets to Graphics; nVidia all the way.

At least it wont be affected from the gddr5 price hike....

[Princess Luna]

Just now, jagdtigger said:

At least it wont be affected from the gddr5 price hike....

Yes because the prices are already sky high lol... not exactly the best excuse

[Juanitology]

Moving to HBM was a great decision from a technical standpoint, the memory technology offers significant advantages over traditional GDDR but the manufacturing processes were just not mature enough to release a consumer card using it. It doesn't help that the memory industry as a whole is in a transition period and we're going through the GMD17 (Great Memory Drought of '17) which further constrains the supply chain. My advice would be stick with whatever you have for now and wait till 2018 to buy/upgrade your PC. All the component shortages + mining boom makes it incredibly expensive to build a PC right now.

[jagdtigger]

6 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Yes because the prices are already sky high lol... not exactly the best excuse

Now imagine that there would be one more 30% bump because of what i mentioned, its not the best but definitely not the worst .

[Zodiark1593]

9 minutes ago, Terodius said:

Moving to HBM was a great decision from a technical standpoint, the memory technology offers significant advantages over traditional GDDR but the manufacturing processes were just not mature enough to release a consumer card using it. It doesn't help that the memory industry as a whole is in a transition period and we're going through the GMD17 (Great Memory Drought of '17) which further constrains the supply chain. My advice would be stick with whatever you have for now and wait till 2018 to buy/upgrade your PC. All the component shortages + mining boom makes it incredibly expensive to build a PC right now.

Not exactly great advice for a person that doesn't have a reasonable PC at this time.

 

[Misanthrope]

28 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

I still think use HBM2 was nothing but a failed marketing thing, it is expensive and difficult to make, gives no real benefits but make stocking it harder and cost more.

 

I really like Ryzen but when it gets to Graphics; nVidia all the way.

I agree: AMD wanting to be innovative is one thing, but forcing tech that's just not ready like HBM and HBM2 is just hurting them too much. There's no reason why they should insist on HBM2 for consumer products those RX Vega cards would be just fine with just gddr5x and they can still push HBM2 on the Frontier edition and other non-consumer products.

[Trixanity]

15 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

I agree: AMD wanting to be innovative is one thing, but forcing tech that's just not ready like HBM and HBM2 is just hurting them too much. There's no reason why they should insist on HBM2 for consumer products those RX Vega cards would be just fine with just gddr5x and they can still push HBM2 on the Frontier edition and other non-consumer products.

I may be wrong but I've seen indications that Vega is memory bandwidth starved and memory overclocking is therefore better than core overclocking, so if that is the case then Vega would be even worse unless they go for a 384/512 bit bus which might be cheaper (although I'm guessing not as cheap as 256 bit) but run hotter and using more power. So the only advantage I see is price at the cost of performance.

[Juanitology]

5 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Not exactly great advice for a person that doesn't have a reasonable PC at this time.

 

I play esports type games like Dota and CS:GO at 1080p. My PC does more than well enough with those kind of games, pushing 100fps or so. You've been brainwashed by marketing into believing you need the latest components to be able to play just like the retards that buy a new iphone every year. Unless you're playing very recent AAA titles at 4K on a high-refresh rate monitor you do not need a 500+USD GPU and enthusiast components. 

 

All I do on my PC is play games that are not that hard to run, watch youtube, and write code and it works perfectly for that kind of application so by any stretch of the imagination I have a reasonable PC. And I'm willing to bet a lot of people are in the same situation as me, where the PC they have works just fine for the things they use it for. Therefore, keeping a PC that\s working fine for you now is actually it's great advice.

Edited August 18, 2017 by W-L
Moderation Content

[Bcat00]

AMD just never learns, they are still in the same situation as before just flipped the cpu and gpu around. 

 

Why cant that company just flop already so a new player can buy them up and get some real competition going. 

 

Jeezes

[TidaLWaveZ]

47 minutes ago, Bcat00 said:

AMD just never learns, they are still in the same situation as before just flipped the cpu and gpu around. 

 

Why cant that company just flop already so a new player can buy them up and get some real competition going. 

 

Jeezes

Because then Intel and Nvidia would each have a monopoly and that's against the rules!

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, Trixanity said:

I may be wrong but I've seen indications that Vega is memory bandwidth starved and memory overclocking is therefore better than core overclocking, so if that is the case then Vega would be even worse unless they go for a 384/512 bit bus which might be cheaper (although I'm guessing not as cheap as 256 bit) but run hotter and using more power. So the only advantage I see is price at the cost of performance.

Yet the 1080ti is fine with it, killing it on any tests and with far lower power consumption.

 

No, GDDR5X isn't the problem, AMD's poor architecture is. This is akin to taking a Bulldozer CPU and try to squeeze a tad more performance out of it with a 120watt TDP chip under water at 5.5ghz and DDR4 3600mhz support.

 

Would it improve it's performance? Probably quite a bit. Yet is not at all practical if the problem is the damn architecture of the chip itself, not the memory.

[TacoSenpai]

51 minutes ago, Bcat00 said:

AMD just never learns, they are still in the same situation as before just flipped the cpu and gpu around. 

 

Why cant that company just flop already so a new player can buy them up and get some real competition going. 

 

Jeezes

I mean it would be a good amount of time before another GPU let alone CPU company would crop up.  In particular a hardware company is pretty tough to run let alone start.  Plus you would go from AMD having some support with drivers and software optimizations to a entirely new company with literally none going up against Intel and Nvidia and likely performing very poorly for the first couple of generations which would in turn lose consumer trust in their products.

[Phate.exe]

1 hour ago, Terodius said:

I play esports type games like Dota and CS:GO at 1080p. My PC does more than well enough with those kind of games, pushing 100fps or so. You've been brainwashed by marketing into believing you need the latest components to be able to play just like the retards that buy a new iphone every year. Unless you're playing very recent AAA titles at 4K on a high-refresh rate monitor you do not need a 500+USD GPU and enthusiast components. 

 

All I do on my PC is play games that are not that hard to run, watch youtube, and write code and it works perfectly for that kind of application so by any stretch of the imagination I have a reasonable PC. And I'm willing to bet a lot of people are in the same situation as me, where the PC they have works just fine for the things they use it for. Therefore, keeping a PC that\s working fine for you now is actually it's great advice.

Anyone that's rocking a 1080p panel will do more than just fine with a 1070/Fury in basically any game.  Honestly my old RX 470 did very well at 1080p, and I'll go back to recommending those to literally everyone once prices become sane again.

 

Esports titles?  I can hold CSGO above 120fps at 4K with a fury and the settings maxed out.  Overwatch I have to turn things down a notch or two to keep things above 60fps at 4K (again, on a used Fury Nitro I bought for $300).

 

The things that gamers have been sold on are pretty hilarious.  Uncomfortable, tacky, and cheaply made racing seat computer chairs (gotta have that lateral support to sit still for 4 hours bro!), "A 5GHz 7700k is necessary for gaming", high refresh TN panels that look like shit, and the idea that you NEED 144hz in order to not suck at counterstrike.  Once you're on the bleeding edge (and getting paid to play videogames), any advantage, perceived or otherwise is worth it, but most people are nowhere near that level.

 

If you really think those extra frames are gonna make you play better, turn the settings down a bit and watch your score not change at all.  Or spend a few minutes tuning the settings to find your preferred balance between "this is running smoothly enough for me" and "I like pretty graphics", exactly the same way PC gamers have been doing it forever.

[Princess Luna]

8 minutes ago, Phate.exe said:

.

 

Next time just post this video it saves you the trouble of explaining

[ltguy]

2 hours ago, Badly Browned said:

What the heck is "SEP"?

 

I've heard of MSRP and SRP, but never SEP. A quick google search doesn't seem to yield anything useful. 

Anyone? I was wondering the same.

[Zodiark1593]

5 hours ago, Terodius said:

I play esports type games like Dota and CS:GO at 1080p. My PC does more than well enough with those kind of games, pushing 100fps or so. You've been brainwashed by marketing into believing you need the latest components to be able to play just like the retards that buy a new iphone every year. Unless you're playing very recent AAA titles at 4K on a high-refresh rate monitor you do not need a 500+USD GPU and enthusiast components. 

 

All I do on my PC is play games that are not that hard to run, watch youtube, and write code and it works perfectly for that kind of application so by any stretch of the imagination I have a reasonable PC. And I'm willing to bet a lot of people are in the same situation as me, where the PC they have works just fine for the things they use it for. Therefore, keeping a PC that\s working fine for you now is actually it's great advice.

BTW, what I mean by those without reasonable PCs are those on very old machines, barely capable of CS:GO to begin with (if that). I was there before when I was using my old laptop until I had gotten together enough to build the PC in my profile.

Edited August 18, 2017 by W-L
Moderation Content

[Phate.exe]

13 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

 

Next time just post this video it saves you the trouble of explaining

YAAAASSSSSS.

 

The number of people I've had tell me that I'm insane if I think a Fury (or a 1070 for that matter) is a 4K-capable card is annoying.  Yeah, if I just launch the game and move all the sliders to the right, of course it might run like shit (realistically, that means it's actually just running at 35fps or so), but there really is hardly any discernible difference between high/ultra (usually low looks okay, medium looks decent, PS4/Xbone are somewhere between medium/high, high looks very good, and ultra basically looks like high).

 

@Zodiark1593 As far as "older machines that can't run CS:GO" how old are you talking about there?  Because CSGO ran very nicely with my old Phenom II X6 (even before I overclocked it) and R9 270X (aka 7870, a card for 2012).

[Trixanity]

45 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

Yet the 1080ti is fine with it, killing it on any tests and with far lower power consumption.

 

No, GDDR5X isn't the problem, AMD's poor architecture is. This is akin to taking a Bulldozer CPU and try to squeeze a tad more performance out of it with a 120watt TDP chip under water at 5.5ghz and DDR4 3600mhz support.

 

Would it improve it's performance? Probably quite a bit. Yet is not at all practical if the problem is the damn architecture of the chip itself, not the memory.

Different architectures. So not really comparable in that sense.

Vega 10 is in many ways a wider design.

 

And it seems reducing the CUs and clock speed while improving memory bandwidth and adding more ROPs would increase performance significantly while reducing power consumption. If I recall correctly 1080 Ti has more effective bandwidth; actually significantly more but apparently Vega doesn't have everything enabled so that might change later (FineWine^tm).

 

So the best scenario would be for AMD to dial back the clock speed of Vega by 100-200 MHz and reducing the voltage by 0.2V or so and improving the bandwidth (faster memory and better memory compression) and ROP count to feed the beast because it seems like they can't so it ends up being impotent. They had the same problem with Fiji. They can't feed it. On paper, it should have massive performance but it's being bottlenecked heavily for whatever reason.

 

Has the architecture hit a dead end or can it be fixed with proper R&D? No idea. But it's probably time for their engineers to try and leapfrog the GPU industry (but not necessarily succeeding so basically a Ryzen for GPUs). Whether that means starting from scratch or radically redesigning parts of GCN (which they supposedly did with Vega but results aren't there) to compete again.